Missouri Department of Transportation & National Park Service - Jefferson National Expansion Memorial
St. Louis, Missouri
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City Arch River

Park Over the Highway

The Gateway Arch in the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (JNEM) Park is the iconic focal point of downtown St. Louis, MO. Until recently, the JNEM had been separated from the rest of the City by Interstate 44, making it difficult for visitors to safely move between downtown and the Arch grounds. A freeway cap park, called the Park Over the Highway was constructed to connect the park grounds and the Arch to the rest of the city.

A nonprofit organization called CityArchRiver Foundation was established to raise private funds and to oversee multiple projects to renovate the Arch Grounds and the surrounding areas. Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates was selected to lead the design of renovations to the JNEM grounds, including the design of the freeway cap park so that it would be integrated with the design of park grounds. The Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) built the Park Over the Highway Project with funding from private donations and TIGER grants from the Federal Highway Administration.

The project is located immediately adjacent to the I-64/I-44 interchange and the Poplar Street Bridge over the Mississippi River. Consequently, the bridge ramp systems on the Missouri side and the local street network were significantly impacted by the Park Over the Highway. DMA’s Civil Engineers developed traffic control plans and drainage designs for modifications to the local roadway and highway ramp systems adjacent to the Project.

Our structural engineers developed the construction documents and provided construction administration services for the cast in place barrier walls for the Park Over the Highway.

Our surveyors provided topographic surveys for the Project utilizing digital scanning techniques. This process enabled our crews to safely obtain field data with no effect on the traffic on the depressed lanes of interstate I-44.